Board Capital,Open Innovation And Corporate Innovation Performance

Innovation is an important driving force for the survival and development of enterprises.In recent years,although China’s innovation strength has been improved,it is still urgent for Chinese enterprises to increase innovation input,actively seek the appropriate innovation mode and improve innovation performance.In China,the open innovation model has become the mainstream innovation model due to its advantages such as low cost,low risk and fast transformation of innovation results.But in open innovation activities,business owners are very concerned about where to open,who to open,degree of openness,how to build benign innovation ecosystem through open innovation network and how to help enterprises achieving good innovation performance,which are also the challenges for the decision-makers.Among the many factors that affect enterprise innovation,the influence of board capital on innovation cannot be ignored.Board members not only use human capital such as educational background,working background and overseas background to influence innovation decisions of enterprises,but also use social capital such as social network resources to provide innovation resources for enterprise innovation.In recent years,there are more and more researches on the influence of board capital on enterprise innovation,but there are still some shortcomings.Through literature review,we find that most of the literature on the impact of board capital on enterprise innovation is based on the perspective of "input-output" and simply studies the relationship between board capital and innovation performance.However,there is no systematic study on the impact of board capital on open innovation mode.In addition,few studies analyzed the mechanism and path referring to open innovation model on how board capital affects enterprise innovation performance.According to the practical background and theoretical background,based on the research gap and the importance of innovation mode,this article will explore the relations among board capital,innovation mode and innovation performance.Firstly,this paper explores the influence of the breadth and depth of board capital on the four dimensions of open innovation: openness,organizational diversity of collaborators,national diversity of collaborators,and the centrality of open innovation network.Secondly,this paper discusses the relationship between board capital and open innovation with the moderator effect of the equity nature and the executive equity incentive.Thirdly,we explore the mediating effect of open innovation on board capital and innovation performance in order to interpret the mechanism and specific implementation path of the relationship between board capital and innovation performance.Based on the above main research contents,the specific research implementation includes seven aspects.First,we define the key concepts,introduce the theoretical bases,summarize the literature review,and find out the shortcomings of the existing research.Second,according to the resource dependence theory,resource-based theory,upper echelons theory and other theoretical bases as well as existing literature,we sort out the relationship among board capital,open innovation,innovation performance,executive incentive mechanism and the equity nature,and then build a theoretical framework.Third,we put forward research hypotheses on six aspects.They are the influence of board capital on the open innovation,moderator effect of executive equity incentive effect,moderator effect of equity nature,the influence of open innovation on the innovation performance,the influence of the board capital on the innovation performance,and the mediating effect of open innovation on board capital and enterprise innovation performance respectively.Fourth,we take listed companies in China with patent licensing,trading and cooperative research and development activities from 1999 to 2019 as research samples to conduct empirical research to verify whether the hypotheses are valid.Fifth,we tested the endogeneity problems in this paper,mainly including bidirectional causality problems and sample selection bias problems,and then conducted a robustness test by changing the regression model and the explained variable.Sixth,we examine the heterogeneity of the influence of board capital on open innovation from the perspective of firm size,industry and whether it is a family firm.Seventh,we combine the research hypotheses and empirical results to extract the specific implementation path of board capital,open innovation model and innovation performance.This paper has drawn some important research conclusions.Firstly,the breadth and depth of board capital positively influence the degree of openness,organizational diversity of collaborators,national diversity of collaborators,and the centrality of open innovation network,respectively.Secondly,the higher the executive shareholding ratio,the stronger the positive effect of the breadth and depth of board capital on the four dimensions of open innovation.Thirdly,the nature of state-owned equity weakens the positive correlation between the breadth of board capital and the four dimensions of open innovation.The nature of state-owned equity weakens the positive correlation between the depth of board capital and the breadth of openness and the centrality of open innovation network.The nature of state-owned equity has no significant effect on the positive correlation between the depth of board capital and the organizational diversity of collaborators and national diversity of collaborators.Fourthly,the four dimensions of open innovation have positive impact on enterprise innovation performance.Fifth,the breadth and depth of board capital positively affect the innovation performance.Sixthly,open innovation plays a mediating role in the relationship between board capital and firm innovation performance,and we conclude6 specific pathways.This study has some innovation.In terms of the research perspective,previous studies focused on the impact of board capital on enterprise innovation performance with the “input-output" research perspective.This paper demonstrates the relationship among board capital,open innovation,and firm innovation performance with the"input-innovation model-output" research perspective,which provides a new research perspective for the study of board capital and innovation.In terms of research contents,firstly,this paper constructs a theoretical system of the impact of board capital on open innovation,which enriches the existing theoretical research on the impact of board capital on innovation.Secondly,this paper proposes that the influence of board capital on open innovation will be affected and limited by the incentive mechanism of corporate governance and the equity nature.This conclusion enriches the theoretical framework of the influence of corporate governance on enterprise innovation model.Thirdly,few studies have explored the mechanism and action path of board capital on enterprise innovation performance,and in which open innovation model has not been embedded.This paper studies the mediating effect of open innovation on board capital and firm innovation performance,which provides a new idea for exploring the mechanism and path of the interaction between board capital and firm innovation performance.